The Great Troll War

The Mighty Shandar

‘All those present,’ said Miss D’Argento, ‘take heed and listen: you are now in the presence of Super Ultra Grand Master Sorcerer, mover of mountains, he-who-the-storms-obey, commander of oceans, speaker of tongues, keeper of the sacred spells, creator of beasts, wiser than the ancient ones and purveyor of fine enchantments, no reasonable terms refused, his most powerful, bountiful worshipfulness: the Mighty Shandar.’

She gave a dramatic flourish and a low bow, but if she had thought we would all follow suit, she was to be disappointed. The honorific was long winded, but correct. Technically speaking, all practitioners should be introduced this way, but it just soaked up useful time that might be otherwise spent drinking tea, or chatting. The only one of our bunch who liked this sort of nonsense was Lady Mawgon.

Nonetheless, at least one of us needed to offer the official reply, and since I was Court Mystician, it fell to me.

‘This house welcomes you, O Mighty Shandar, Super Ultra Grand Master Sorcerer, mover of mountains, he-who-the-storms-obey, commander of oceans and keeper of the sacred spells, creator of beasts and wiser than the ancient ones.’

To a sorcerer of Shandar’s power, the correct honorific was all-important. You didn’t get to this level with just skill and hard study. No, you needed ambition, a massive personal ego, a keen sense of entitlement and a streak of vanity a mile wide.

And he had all of them.

In spades.

‘We return your salutations, noble Court Mystician,’ said Miss D’Argento, going into the second line of the official salutation. I think there were four calls and returns in total. ‘Our pledge is peace, our reason here a parler,22 our fingers are bent, there shall be no subterfuge.’

She waited me to return the salutation.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I don’t know the rest. I’ve never got this far before.’

‘I think you just repeat it back,’ said Colin.

‘You do not,’ said D’Argento indignantly, ‘but if you so require, this person can write it down if you wish.’

Miss D’Argento usually referred to herself in the third person. Out of all her affectations – jet-black suit, constant reference to her clipboard, fashionable indifference – it was the one I liked least. Shandar, however, merely glanced at D’Argento and waved away any objections, so she fell silent while he looked around carefully. His gaze paused briefly on Colin and Feldspar, then on Once Magnificent Boo, Monty Vanguard, the Princess, and finally me. He proffered me a faint glimmer of respect and stepped forward, his footprints remaining aflame for some seconds after he had moved on. That he was the most powerful sorcerer alive today was beyond doubt.

Shane James Alexandar was a child magical prodigy. By the time he was six he could levitate pianos and charm badgers from their burrows in broad daylight. He’d conjured up his first house by the time he was ten, and by his fifteenth birthday had demonstrated an eighty-foot free teleport, then a world record. By the time he was eighteen he had mastered arboreal transformation, weather manipulation and the transmutation of matter. He passed out First in Class from Sorcerer College and was awarded the ‘Mighty’ honorific eight years later when he spelled up the Quarkbeast, winner of the coveted ‘Most Terrifying Beast’ prize at the 1592 ‘Wizard of the Year’ awards.

His dazzling career encompassed almost every aspect of the mystical arts, finally culminating in dealing with the Dragon Question,23 for which he was paid enough24 to retire twenty times over. He was so key to the industry that the unit of wizidrical energy had been named after him, and there were few who considered him anything but the finest exponent of the wizidrical arts. After the Dragons were dealt with his reputation began to tarnish as he became known as a sorcerer who would do pretty much anything if the price was right, ethical or not. By the time he was middle aged he was more of a loner, and rarely sought the companionship or counsel of his peers.

‘Miss Strange,’ he said cordially, ‘you are looking well.’

‘And yourself, sire,’ I returned, ‘you look barely a day over ninety.’

‘You will treat His Mightiness with the proper respect,’ growled Miss D’Argento.

‘It’s okay,’ said Shandar, ‘I think Miss Strange intended it as compliment.’

He was right. It was. Shandar was actually somewhere in his mid-four-hundreds and this was highly unusual. The magical holy grail of Eternal Life had remained stubbornly beyond the reach of sorcerers. The oldest wizard to ever live in a continuously human form had finally clocked out at an impressive 173 years and nine days. Others had achieved greater longevity by spending their weekends as tortoises or lobsters but Shandar had achieved his old age by simply turning himself to stone, a spell that had been invented to avoid income tax by outliving the current tax regime or waiting for the paperwork to be lost, as it inevitably was.

‘So,’ I said, ‘how may we serve you?’

‘Straight to the point?’ he replied. ‘I admire that. So here it is: no doubt you have seen that the Trolls are currently in complete possession of these islands. You may already have surmised that I had something to do with it.’

We all knew it was him, but the confirmation made my temper rise, and I could feel I was not alone – the tension in the room rose markedly.

‘You murdered my friends,’ I said in a quiet voice, ‘innocents, sorcerers, your own. Everything that the Sorcerer’s Charter holds to be true and just – you rejected.’

‘The Charter does not recognise forward thinking; it is rooted in the old ways. And they were not friends of mine, Miss Strange – but I will meditate upon their loss, in time. To business: you will have seen that I have shortened Zip’s predictive powers, set up a HENRY Spellsucker and interfered with Price and Mawgon’s telepathic shout-out. As things currently stand you have only two sorcerers, no wizidrical power for them to use, and less than forty people militarily trained, eighteen swords and four firearms.’

‘Nineteen swords,’ I said, ‘if you count Exhorbitus, but let’s not quibble.’

‘I … exactly. The point is, you are poorly placed to resist the Troll, and the next step is up to you. They can rule for thousands of years with humans as little more than edible staff, or they can be gone by Monday teatime. I can make that happen, or I can leave them to their impressive levels of culinary invention.’

‘We understand the threat,’ I said slowly. ‘What do you want?’

Horse-trading was a little below him, so he signalled for Miss D’Argento to step in.

‘It’s very simple,’ she said. ‘His Mightiness wants the Eye of Zoltar he asked you to secure and … your Quarkbeast.’

This was worrying. If you were foolish enough to let two identical yet opposing Quarkbeasts conjoin, they would generate huge amounts of wizidrical energy – always to the ‘Criticality’ level discussed earlier, usually with enough power to take out a good-sized city block. But as I sat there staring at them both, I realised that if you could focus that energy – such as through the Eye of Zoltar – then you could use it to enrich yourself with some very powerful magic. With a sense of growing unease I thought I understood what he was up to. Not what he actually wanted to do, but a methodology to his demands: he was after power – and lots of it. This was a tricky situation, and in moments like this you needed time to figure out how to find yourself another, bigger chunk of time – and maybe, just maybe, you could find a solution in that.

Or just more time.

‘Agreed,’ I said almost immediately, as hesitation suggests indecision. If you’re going to lie, don’t dither for a second – and make it a whopper. The bigger the fib, the greater the chance that people will believe it.

‘I will supply both to you,’ I continued, ‘just as soon as the last Troll hoof is off the nation’s soil. We also want the Great Zambini returned to us, intact, now, as a sign of goodwill.’

The Mighty Shandar stared at me for a moment, impressed. Few, if any, would have dared to speak to him like this, but growing up in an orphanage under Mother Zenobia’s often tyrannical method of child-rearing toughened you up.

‘That any of you are alive at all is the mark of my supreme benevolence,’ he said slowly. ‘The magpies that helped fill the Button Trench – that was me. I have spared you once, but you will not always find me so magnanimous.’

‘Zambini stays vanished,’ added Miss D’Argento. ‘You will give His Mightiness the Eye and the Quarkbeast right now, and the Trolls will be gone in a month.’

‘The Mighty Shandar said he could get rid of them by Monday teatime,’ said Tiger, who had been brought up in the same orphanage as me, and it showed. The Mighty Shandar turned to glare at Tiger, who didn’t seem fussed at all.

‘His Mightiness merely meant,’ said D’Argento in a testy manner, ‘that he can start to get rid of them by Monday morning.’

‘He should have been clearer.’

‘Put the little twit on the Troll Eat List,’ said Shandar, ‘and have him fast-tracked to the head of the banquet for his impertinence – on a large platter, covered in glaze and with an apple in his mouth. That’ll shut him up.’

D’Argento made a hurried note and I smiled inwardly. Tiger was trying to distract him. Zambini had told me that when negotiating, keep negotiating, keep engaging, and even if you’re making little headway, find some small concession. Come away from the first stage of a negotiation empty handed, and you’ll always come away empty handed.

‘We will consider your offer and let you know on Monday,’ I said, trying to buy some time over the weekend, ‘so long as we can see a reduction in Troll numbers at the Button Trench.’

‘His Mightiness is the one dictating terms,’ D’Argento said. ‘I thought that was obvious.’

Shandar looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

‘But,’ she added, taking it down a notch, ‘since His Mightiness has more pressing matters to occupy his time, you may give us the Eye of Zoltar now, and as soon as we take possession of the Quarkbeast on Monday morning the Trolls will be instantly transported to beyond the Troll Wall, which will then be sealed. We do not know where Zambini is.’

‘Take the deal,’ added Shandar, ‘or the next thing you will be wearing is garnish.’

There was a long pause.

‘Jennifer,’ said Boo, ‘we should give His Mightiness the Eye of Zoltar.’

I wasn’t sure about this, but trusted Boo implicitly, so nodded my assent.

‘I’ll get it,’ said Monty Vanguard. As he hurried off, the Mighty Shandar looked around.

‘So that’s what Maltcassion25 became, is it?’ he said. ‘Not much to look at, are you?’

This was kind of true. Both Feldspar and Colin were only young, and looked like baby birds just coming into feather – sort of untidy, with feathers and scales pointing out in all directions.

‘The name’s Colin,’ said Colin, ‘and I will have my vengeance upon you for destroying so many of my kind.’

‘I’m quaking in my boots already,’ said Shandar. ‘I’ll deal with you and your silly brother in due course, have no fear of that.’

‘Here it is,’ said Monty, walking back in with a galvanised pail. We kept the Eye in a bucket of water, which is a good moderator26 of wizidrical energy. But even so we had to change the water every week as the magic the Eye attracted turned the water first to Ribena, then to rose petals, then butterflies. It pays to be cautious. To expel energy in a focused beam, the Eye had also to be able to absorb it. Shandar delicately took the large and fiery jewel from the bucket, stared at it and smiled. We’d thought he’d sent us to find the Eye as something of a wild goose chase, but from the look on his face, it was an integral part of his plans.

‘You have until dawn on Monday to deliver the Quarkbeast,’ said Miss D’Argento. ‘If you fail to do so, His Mightiness will undertake some instant bridge-building across the trench, and then set out deckchairs for us both to watch the invasion of your pitiful little safe haven in comfort, and the devouring of all those within.’

‘Well,’ said Shandar, clapping his hands and giving us all a smile, ‘this has been a lot of fun and I think we understand each other. Good day.’

And he vanished in another overly dramatic pillar of fire.

Oddly, Miss D’Argento didn’t; she was left standing in the middle of the ballroom very much on her own. She looked at her watch, then the clipboard, then found an invisible piece of fluff on her lapel.

‘He’s forgotten you, hasn’t he?’ said Tiger after an awkward few seconds.

‘His Mightiness has much on his mind,’ she said, ‘but I am central to his needs. He will return.’

‘Leave Shandar and side with us,’ I said. ‘With your help we can beat him.’

‘My destiny is inextricably linked to that of my master’s,’ she said, staring at me with a glimmer of sadness. ‘As, I believe, is yours.’

‘We have something in common, then. Is this how you see yourself?’ I added. ‘The lackey of a despot?’

‘Your taunts will not sway me from my course,’ said D’Argento. ‘There is a bigger picture that you cannot see, a story that is not yet revealed.’

‘Riddles, D’Argento?’

She cocked her head on one side and regarded me without emotion – and was suddenly gone in another pillar of fire. Shandar must have wanted his socks washed or something.

There was a moment’s pause as we took all this in.

‘Quark?’ said the Quarkbeast.

‘No,’ I said, staring into his expressive mauve eyes, ‘we’ll not give you up. Not now, not ever.’

‘What was all that “bigger picture” stuff about?’ asked the Princess.

‘I’m really not sure,’ I replied. ‘Messing with our heads, most likely.’

‘Is he going to make good on that promise to instantly remove the Trolls?’ asked the Princess.

‘An assurance from Shandar assures precisely nothing,’ I said, ‘so assume not. If we have until Monday morning, that’s two days.’

‘A lot can happen in two days,’ said Tiger.

‘True. Why were you keen to give him the Eye of Zoltar, Boo?’

She nodded towards Monty.

‘While handing it to him I may have accidentally slipped a Lump of East in his pocket,’ said Monty, taking an east-pointing compass from his own pocket. ‘It’s such an old spell he may not notice he’s got it on him.’

Monty put the compass on the table and we stared at it. The needle swung around lazily.

‘What are we looking at?’ asked the Princess.

‘The spell that makes any iron point to magnetic north is the only remaining part of an ingenious Global Magic Navigation System spelled by the Phoenicians around two millennia BCE,’ explained Monty. ‘There were going to be four fixed compass points around the globe, each with a separate metal-based compass that would point to them. Simple trigonometry would then be used to give your location anywhere in the known world with an accuracy down to about five hundred yards.’

‘What happened?’ asked Colin.

‘Budget overruns, mostly – and sabotage by other seafaring nations. The one they planted in the far north is the only one still functioning today.’

We continued to stare at the compass, and the needle swung freely for a while, then turned and pointed fixedly in one direction.

‘Okay,’ said Boo. ‘He’s out of teleportation and somewhere on that line.’

‘He could be as close as Padstow or … in Siberia,’ said Tiger.

‘Exactly,’ said Boo. ‘Feldspar? I need you to take this compass to the end of the harbour, get a reading, then fly to the north coast and get another reading. Repeat several times, and when you think you have a reasonable accuracy, come back and we’ll figure out the trigonometry.27’

‘Right,’ said Feldspar, happy to be doing some work. He flew out of the open window with a raucous beating of wings and an enthusiastic ‘Tally ho!’ then returned a minute later to take the compass that he’d forgotten, and flew off again, only without the ‘Tally ho’.

‘Okay,’ I said to everyone present, ‘just so we’re clear on this: Shandar will not keep his word. The negotiation you saw buys us one thing: time. We’ve got until dawn on Monday morning to figure out a winning strategy. After that, Cornwall will look less like a picturesque peninsula with a rugged coastline and reasonably priced teashops, and more like a Troll’s all-you-can-eat buffet. The Princess’s closest advisers are going to try and formulate a plan of action, and I may call on any one of you to help, so stand close by to await orders. Any questions?’

No one said a word, and I called an end to the Conclave. The attendees all filed out in something of a daze, leaving only myself, Boo, Colin, Tiger, the Princess, Full Price, Kevin Zip, the Mysterious X and Monty Vanguard. Once everyone else had departed, I asked Tiger to go and fetch Lady Mawgon.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘we need to discover Shandar’s overall plan, and once we know exactly what it is, the chances of thwarting him might move, with a lot of luck, from “utterly impossible” to a more workable “highly improbable”.’

‘My kind of odds,’ said the Princess.

We discussed Shandar’s possible plans, making little headway until Tiger came back accompanied by a severe-looking woman who glided into the room dressed in a large black crinoline dress.

It was Lady Mawgon.